‘I would never sell my property through an online agent – hybrid is the future’: YOPA director Andrew Barclay reveals how he plans to grow the Google of real estate
Love them or hate them, the traditional high street estate agent may have a new internet rival on the block, but just don’t call them an online-only operation.
YOPA, standing for Your Property Agent, rolls out nationwide this week, and in an exclusive interview with Property Industry Eye, co-managing director Andrew Barclay explains why they are more of a hybrid agency than an online estate agent.
“When we started two years ago we were a purely online service. Customers paid roughly £450 to get a listing on the big portals and we tried to give them services like photos and floor plans.
“But we quickly realised that this is not a viable business as people still want the human interaction.
“Putting such as large asset with a sole online-only website is a little bit risky, I wouldn’t do it with my own flat.”
Instead, Barclay, aged just 24, argues that a fixed fee hybrid agency is better value for money for homeowners looking to sell their property.
YOPA offers to list properties for £780 and will provide photos and floor plans as well as postings on Zoopla, Primelocation and Rightmove.
There are extra charges for accompanied viewings or help with energy performance certificates.
Sellers can access an option to delay payment for six months on an interest-free basis.
YOPA operates a centralised call centre in Tamworth, currently employing seven people. Callers are directed to Local Property Managers who manage the valuation and sales process as an estate agent would.
Barclay says there are currently 60 LPMs servicing all areas of England and Wales, made up of ex-estate agents, but he plans to recruit more. LPMs get a salary at first and are later self-employed.
But what experience can Barclay and his co-directors bring to the table? Yopa’s directors are Andrew, his cousin Alistair Barclay and Daniel Attia, both 26.
Andrew started his career at Enstar Capital, a residential and commercial property developer in London. He later jointly founded Hillgate Property Investments with Alistair.
Alistair has some estate agency experience, having worked at London-based Best Gapp.
Daniel started his career working with Michael Elliott Advisors, a commercial real estate investment advisory. He concluded circa £100m of transactions.
Barclay insists that lacking decades of estate agency experience is a positive, adding: “We are all quite young, in our twenties so we have no set way of doing things.
“A lot of the other competition is run by ex-estate agents. This business isn’t really about us, we pretty much have the best people in their own fields and our job is really to give them the resources they need.
“A large part is having LPMs as ex-agents who can do the valuations and support sellers. We will have a big focus on technology and digital elements and have plans for growth in this area.
“We don’t want to be run like an old school agent.”
The idea for YOPA popped up when the four founders, Andrew, Adrian, Daniel and another friend David Jacobs were talking about Dan selling his apartment and the lack of options for private sales a few years ago.
He says: “Purplebricks was at that time non-existent. We saw an opportunity to build a household brand.”
Barclay predicts the demise of the high street agent as “most buyers come through the portals and there is less need for a back-book of clients” although he says there may be room for village estate agents over big brands.
He says: “YOPA still offers a local person on the ground who has been a branch manager so knows about going round the house and doing the same job an estate agent would do, but with no high percentage based costs and just a fixed fee.”
Barclay says the business will be run on honesty and transparency when it comes to pricing and working with customers, although he is less willing to talk about his relatives, the Barclay brothers, owners of the Telegraph and hugely wealthy fathers of Andrew and Alistair Barclay.
There is no suggestion that the newspaper moguls are involved in their sons’ business.
The main shareholders of the business are one of the co-founders David Jacobs, Hillgate Investment Trading, which lists Andrew and Alistair as directors, and a company called Bryanston 2014 that lists Attia as a director.
Obvious distinctions will be drawn with Purplebricks, which recently listed on the alternative investment market, but a flotation is not currently part of the business plan.
He explains: “We are talking to investors who can bring added value. But we don’t need to go cap in hand.
“It is premature to start talking about exit strategies. We are not in this for a quick buck, but want to take business off the high street agent and create a real solution for the UK home owners.”
Barclay says one of YOPA’s agents sold two properties in three weeks during a recent trial period at the end of 2015.
The website currently has only 50 users, but Barclay predicts it will hit this number each day after recent television adverts attracted thousands of enquiries.
Barclay adds: “Millions of homes are sold a year so this model is scaleable. There are thousands of online operations. We believe there is an opportunity to create a well-known household name based on honest valuations, transparency and decent technology.
“We aim to be the Google of real estate.”
Pictured left to right: Andrew Barclay, David Jacobs, Dan Attia and Alistair Barclay
YOPA, standing for Your Property Agent…
********. And ******** of the highest order, I must add.
It was launched as Your ONLINE Property Agent. From the blatant advertorial in The Telegraph entitled “Is this the end of the road for high-street estate agents”:
“The new arrival is Yopa (Your Online Property Agent)…”
Forbes ran a piece entitled “How An Online Property Site Is Disrupting The Real Estate Industry” which stated:
“Think of… (Your Online Property Agent) as the Air BnB for the property market.”
And the column inched dedicated to the outfit in the Evening Standard last May, entitled “Yopa: New hi-tech online estate agent ‘plans to revolutionise moving house’ “, even has a screenshot of their then webpage showing what Y O P and A were actually designed to stand for…
…not to change to suit today’s new ‘Hovis’ when they see the business model they planned to cash in on starting to spectacularly implode.
I’ll not even bother with the rest of the piece.
I’m sure they’ll do their own damage perfectly adequately.
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‘ Barclay predicts the demise of the high street agent as “most buyers come through the portals and there is less need for a back-book of clients” ‘
… Is there a secret clause that was been inserted into Estate Agency Act 1979 unbeknown to anyone (almost like that fourth secret objective in the the first Robocop movie from the 1980’s (not the the recent one) where he couldn’t arrest anyone from RoboCorp until that nasty man was sacked – great film!) .. where all online line and hybrid agents roll out this line ..
eg all buyers come through the portals
Of the course they do … but unless the housing market goes belly up, buyers are not the issue .. its sellers, sellers with stock to sell .. that is the issue. Just because you are online, just because you are WrongMove or ZoopaLoopie or On The Merkat won’t get you stock .. every one is on those.
… and the online / hybrid way to get stock and listings .. cheap fees.
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talking of low fees though .. I do really wonder how they can be successful with their cheap fees .. I mean, as High Street agents, We have all been there … “Can you drop your fees?”
… the landlord/vendor tells us that they loved everything that we showed them and how different our approach is ….but then asks us to lower the fee to bag the listing, to win the business. So, most agents lower the fee. Then, because we lowered the fee, we fail to produce the result the landlord/vendor needs. It required a larger investment of time, money, advertising, effort (whatever), and we destroyed our ability to make those investments but we dropped the fee.
…. what if you already started off with low fees? Like this cheap onliness .. Even worse!
Anyway, back to the story, since as the estate or letting agent, we don’t deliver the better results, our landlord / vendor believes that all agents are all the same. They believe that the valuer / lister exaggerated and overestimated their real abilities to make a difference, and they come to believe that no agent can really get them what they want. So they decide it isn’t worth paying more when every agent tells them that they are going to produce better results at a lower fee .. but never do.
What is the worst part of all of this? The whole estate and lettings agency industry responsible….
Every estate agent and every letting agent has a choice …. your service can either be seen as one that is revolutionary, out of this world, remarkable, indispensably awesome OR it can end up being viewed as a commoditised. It’s your choice
de finition of commoditised
… to render (a good or service) widely available and interchangeable with one provided by another company
Ouch …
Caving in on fees means you will not have the resources to make that client feel your service is revolutionary, out of this world, remarkable, indispensably awesome … meaning you will have to offer a bog standard service like every other agent ie commoditised ….. and being commoditised isn’t how you help your dream landlord or dream vendor.
If you are going to really help your dream landlord or dream vendor, if you are really going to be their trusted advisor, if you are really going to be consultative, you have to sell well enough to get your dream landlord or dream vendor to make the investment that they need to in order to produce the result that they want.
What is it going to be?
(a) Are you an agent that offers a service that is widely available and interchangeable with one provided by another estate/letting agency (ie a commoditised agent) .
(b) or an agent that offers out of this world, remarkable, indispensably awesome service that is unique as you are their trusted property advisor.
You cant offer an out of this world, remarkable, indispensably awesome service on cheap fees … that is simple economics
If you opted for the second choice … then you need to prove to the dream landlord/dream vendor the value that you are creating. You need to describe to them how a fuller fee is going make a difference, and how without it you, you won’t be able to provide what they want and they won’t get what they want …. and here is the killer bit … and if I had a pound for every agent who told me this story …. if you have to, you have to learn to say no and to walk away.
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I know we don’t post urls this spivery demands
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22yopa%22%2B%22your+online+property+agent%22+site:www.telegraph.co.uk&gws_rd=cr&ei=LJuaVpbyJIacUcDro2g
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